Thursday, August 21, 2014

What's The Hurry?!

The time was 9:02 AM and I was rushing through the financial
district streets of downtown San Francisco. I was already two minutes late to
my 9 am meeting and it was still a good 5 minutes for me to reach my office
cubicle on the 8th floor of what was once the tallest building of
San Francisco in 1922.

Come to think of it, I was rushing since morning. It was
with haste that I got myself ready after forcing myself to wake up,
it was the sprint from my apt to station that made me catch the train that at least
ensured me of being able to attend the 9 am meeting albeit late, and here I was
sprinting again to office.

Then I looked around me and saw something that I had missed
looking all these days: Apparently everyone around me was rushing too! It
dawned upon me that even when I was sprinting from apt to station, pretty much
everyone was either running or briskly walking. The train itself was a super-fast
ride that covered over 25 miles in 37 minutes (an impossibility to match this
time on road when compared with peak hour traffic). And even here in the SFO financial
district, people were whizzing past one another, dignified men in suits were
skateboarding and cycling – all in the name of hurrying. And it was just not
the young and dashing – even the oldies were trying to keep up with the running
clock.

If I had to just stand still on the pavement, frozen solid,
and record the movements around me – like one of those time warp videos – it would
be almost dizzy! Everyone is rushing!! If I am standing still and focusing on
the very necessity of this rush, I can’t help feeling – is it really needed?! It
is one thing to work but it is another thing to work always under the pressure
of a time-ticking guillotine. What is time after all? It is just a man-made
instrument! Since when did time become so important! Since “time immemorial”,
apparently! Anyways, I guess it is just the "lazy" me who gets these weird thoughts!

But is it really needed for the
projects to have such tight deadlines that make every team member to rush, to
skip breakfasts, skip lunch too, or go to fast food. The very phrase ‘fast food’ indicates
the hurry. Of course, we all know the nutritional value of fast food and the
effect it has on the body (and thereby life span) in the long run.